My name is Julian Creutz (he/him), and I am a rising senior majoring in creative writing & literature. I have worked on the Borderless Seed Stories project (BSS) for two summers as an undergraduate intern. My work primarily focused on research and synthesis to make the main content of the BSS site, and I also contributed my creativity in the form of illustrations, poetry, and other design elements. As a creative writing major, I am passionate about storytelling and crafting narratives for underrepresented groups, and BSS does just that! While working on BSS, I also worked as a research assistant for the Religion in Real Time project through the Humanities Collaboratory and drafted my thesis, Rich Boy Miller. Post graduation, I plan to take a gap year or two to work and travel before I get a dual masters degree in library science and divinity in Chicago.
A self portrait for the BSS site!
Borderless Seed Stories (BSS) is an exploration of seeds and the matrices they form with their stewards, their land, and the politics of the world that they (and we) inhabit. Through the use of five theme explorations, BSS seeks to understand the ways in which seeds can teach us so much about existing on a planet, defined by borders, and the ways in which we are all built to resist these borders and become truly Borderless. As the intern on this project for Summer 2025, I was tasked with building out the website for all the existing BSS content from last summer and producing new content for the site like poetry, graphics, and illustrations.
"Lady Liberty, Mother Earth," one of my traditional illustrations for BSS.
I did, in fact, build out the full website with the help of my mentors. I put together the color story, design elements, and site structure, and edited every corner of the site for accessibility. I contributed just shy of a dozen illustrations, five poems, and several graphics to the site. I also edited old content to optimize it for website usage, and made five zines, or “baby sites,” for patrons to download and fold to take a little bit of BSS home with them. I also spent quite a bit of time training for copyright and fair use and for design accessibility to bolster my knowledge and make the site as functional and as beautiful as possible.
Web design was not a skill I expected to acquire in my second summer as a BSS intern, but I surely did acquire it! I am now confident that I can build a variety of websites to fit any need, which will be hugely beneficial to my future, more entrepreneurial career ventures. I also gained skills in work management, project management, and work-life balance. Personally, I struggled a lot over the duration of this internship with a variety of family emergencies, sickness, and disability-related chronic health problems. Through the grace of my team and mentors, I was able to work through the life side of the work-life balance and come out with a much clearer idea of what I’m capable of and when I need to take breaks to avoid burnout and long-term issues. This experience, in tandem with my BSS experience last summer, has primed me for a variety of academic and professional pursuits as I go forth into the post-grad world. I can pretty confidently say that I’ve completed two theses in my time at Michigan, one for BSS and the other for my major, and those research and synthetization skills I gained from BSS are truly invaluable.
As far as impact, I hope and pray that BSS and its missions of seed stewardship and community care extend far beyond the library and even the university itself. BSS represents a truly cutting-edge area of scholarship that remains mostly untapped, and as the project expands over the years into future iterations, I cannot wait to see where this project that will always be near-and-dear to my heart takes root.